How to schedule Blogger posts to a future date

One of the few things I'd hope to see in the new Blogger format was the ability to schedule posts to appear at a later date. Unfortunately, this hasn't (yet) been implemented in Blogger, so unlike Wordpress users, we can't schedule our posts.

Or can we..?

Well, actually, we can! There is a workaround which enables Bloggers to write posts in advance and schedule them to be sent by email at a specific date and time. Here's how it can be done:

Firstly, you should set up your "Mail-To-Blogger" address in your Blogger dashboard if you haven't already done so. To do this, go to Settings>Email in your dashboard, and create a unique email address to send your email posts to. Ensure you keep this address as secret as you would a password, since anyone could use this to post to your blog if discovered! Ensure you have checked the "Publish" box and then save your settings.

Next, you will need to create an email account which enables you to schedule emails to send at a future time. Many email clients have this feature already installed (I use GoDaddy's free webmail service, which was included with my domain). Here are two great free webmail services you can use to schedule email sending:

• Letter me Later: Features the ability to write emails using your existing email address! Has an HTML editor, no advertisements, and a quick send client for ease of use. Free registration required for all features.
• Email Scheduler: free service featuring unlimited storage, reminders and optional toolbar.

Once you have set-up an email scheduling service, you can write emails as you would your Blogger posts. The subject line will become the title of your blog posts, and if you use an html editor to compose your emails, you will have the same functionality as your Blogger "compose" function. Ensure you schedule the exact time and date you want to send the email before hitting send as this will be the exact time your post is published, and send to the email address you set up in your Mail-to-Blogger settings.

The only disadvantage of emailing your posts is that you cannot define labels for your posts before sending them. If anyone has discovered a way to do this, I would be very glad to hear from you! Of course, you could edit your posts at a later date from your Dashboard to add the labels.

This method of scheduling Blogger posts is something I will be using for the next week or so, since I'll be on holiday and unable to post as usual!

Please feel free to leave your comments below. If anyone knows of other free email scheduling services, please post them here and I will edit this post to include them.

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